An Angel Set Me Free: And other incredible true stories of the afterlife

My own troubles weren’t over, though. When my daughter Tanya was seven she was abused by someone in a position of trust and became very disturbed as a result. I tried to pursue this man through the courts but was told it was his word against hers. All he got was a rap on the knuckles. It was a very hard time and I was deeply depressed about it all, yet trying to be calm and comfort my daughter as best I could.

One day I was taking a course in Guildford, Surrey, sixty miles away from where we were living at the time. I was walking up the high street towards the place where the course was due to take place when a little man wearing a dark brown raincoat came up and tapped me on the arm.

‘Your mum wants to talk to you,’ he said.

‘No, she doesn’t,’ I said crossly.

‘Yes, she does,’ he insisted.

‘My mother’s dead!’ I told him.

‘I know that,’ he said and I looked at him more closely. There was something very calm and still about him. ‘I’m going where you’re going,’ he continued.

‘How do you know where I’m going?’

In response, he walked ahead of me and turned into an alley then round to the back of the building where I was taking my course and in through the correct door. I was amazed as I followed him in, and finally ready to listen to what he had to say.

‘Your mother is telling me that you feel as though you’re facing a brick wall. But she says to remember that as each door closes a window opens, and don’t you forget it.’

This was a phrase my mother had often used. I opened my mouth to thank him for the message but as quickly as he had arrived, he was gone again. Some people who were there for the course came over to greet me.

‘Do you know that man?’ I asked, pointing in the direction he had gone, but they all looked at each other blankly. No one did.

I never saw him again, but I believe he was a physical angel sent to bring me comfort at that very difficult time. Looking back, there was a kind of light about him and I trusted him instinctively. Reminding me of my mother’s words about all the opportunities in the world was the perfect message for me at that time and knowing she was around helped me to pick myself—and my daughter—up again.

Most people think of angels as being in the spirit world, but I have learned that there are many different kinds. They have all ascended through many lifetimes and evolved in each so that their souls are pure. They communicate with us in different ways, but always for a reason, and listening to them will help us to move forwards in our lives.

Many wise angels have come to help me in different periods of my life. There were the five souls looking at me with love as I lay in my cot; the man in the brown suit who I thought was God; the two pairs of hands that lifted me back from the cliff edge in Devon; that little man in the main street in Guilford; and many, many more (I’ll tell you about some of the others later in this book). I probably failed to recognise many angel visitations during the period between my teens and my thirties when I tried to turn my back on my psychic abilities. As I teach on my courses, the first thing you need to do is learn to be still and listen so that your sensitivity develops—and for a long time I wasn’t listening.

Angels visit all of us at different times. By learning to recognise them and heed what they have to say, we can lead happier, more successful lives and find comfort to get us through the dark times. They may even save our lives.

Chapter 2 The Angels We Know (#ulink_6025930c-edff-5f7d-b077-ada5d851f2a1)

Once established, the bond of love is never broken. When someone who loves you passes away, they are not physically present on earth any more but they remain with you, watching over you, and they can help you when you need it. My mother only comes back to give me a message in periods when I have real problems but I know she’s around the rest of the time and I still talk to her in my head every day.

Death isn’t painful or difficult, even though dying can be. People fear letting go, but once you die you are going home, back to a place you recognise, somewhere you existed before your previous life on earth. Once you have arrived there, you turn around and see the pain your family is going through, and that’s why many spirits come back as quickly as they can to try and give comfort. If someone comes to me for a reading soon after a bereavement, the spirit will often just say, ‘Tell them I love them and that I’m fine.’

I was in a supermarket recently, squeezing some lemons to see if they were juicy, and I got into conversation with a woman there. Suddenly her husband’s voice came into my head, saying, ‘Tell Margaret that she did everything she possibly could and that she’s to stop feeling guilty. Nothing more could have been done.’

I turned to the woman. ‘Are you Margaret?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’ She looked puzzled that I should know her name.

I repeated the message from her husband and she was visibly shocked.

‘Oh my goodness,’ she said. ‘Oh my goodness. He died last week and I’ve been feeling so guilty because I went out shopping and when I got back he was dead. He’d been ill with multiple sclerosis for a long time and I’d been nursing him, but I didn’t realise the end was so near and I went out to get some food.’ She began to sob and we hugged each other for several minutes until she calmed down.

‘He’s with you all the time,’ I told her. ‘He wants you to be happy.’

People always come back for their own funerals—not to see how many friends turn up, or whether their funeral instructions have been followed, because these are earthly concerns that no longer matter. Instead they come to give comfort to those they have left behind, in whatever way they can. Without exception, I have seen the dead person at every funeral I have ever gone to. Every one. And at my father’s funeral, he actually sat on his own coffin smoking and drinking throughout!

My dad had been a military man, so his coffin was draped in a Union Jack and there were just a few poppies on it—the wreaths were all outside the church. I had agreed with my brother and sister that I would say a few words during the service but as the time drew near, I wasn’t sure I could do it. My father had been ninety years old, which is a good age, but I’d always been a daddy’s girl and I was very, very upset about his death. I wasn’t sure I would be able to make my little speech without breaking down because I was feeling so overwhelmed, but when the time came, I looked up and there was Dad, sitting on his coffin with his legs crossed—and he winked at me. He had a cigarette in one hand, a beer in the other and he looked cheerful and calm, and that gave me the courage to go on. I stood up and started talking about all the good deeds he had done in his life, and the sort of person he was, and in my head I could hear him say, ‘Go on, that’s my girl!’

Not everyone is able to see spirits at a funeral but many people have described to me a sudden feeling that the dead person is close to them, or hugging them, or has an arm round their shoulder. Maybe they can smell their perfume or hear a familiar voice inside their head, and at that point they get a sense of strength and know that they will be able to cope with whatever happens next.

Family members on the other side will not watch and listen to every single thing we do, but they always know when we are thinking about them. Some will become our guardian angels, who can come to help us when we are straying off our life’s path and to give us comfort and guidance at different stages when we need it. There are many different ways they can communicate with us—and one of the most common is actually hearing their voice in our head.

Lock the Doors!

Anne was a woman in her mid-40s who ran her own little florist’s business. She loved the work, because it allowed her to express her creativity and she got to spend her days surrounded by the beautiful colours and scents of flowers, but most weeks she only just scraped by and sometimes she had trouble finding the rent. Here’s a story she told me about her visit from an angel.

It was the day before Mother’s Day and I had done a roaring trade for a change, as dozens of customers ordered hand-tied bouquets to be delivered to their mums. At six o’clock, I closed the shop, put all the takings into a canvas bag and walked out to my car to take the money to the bank. They had a late-night deposit slot where I could put it in, ready to be counted the next day. I threw the canvas bag onto the floor on the passenger side of the car, where it was clearly visible, and set off through the rush-hour traffic.

I was just coming up to a set of traffic lights when I felt my skin pricking all over and heard my mother’s voice in my head. ‘Lock the doors! Lock the doors!’ it said.

Without thinking, I pressed the central locking knob and there was a click. Seconds later a motorcyclist in a blue helmet with a black visor yanked at the handle of the passenger door and rattled it angrily. When it wouldn’t open, he pounded on the window so hard I was sure he was going to break the glass. Fortunately the lights changed at that point and I put my foot down and drove off as fast as I could to the bank, looking anxiously in the mirror in case I was being followed. When I got to the deposit slot, I drove round several times to make sure the motorcyclist hadn’t come after me before I dared to get out of the car.

I was very shaken. If the takings from the shop had been stolen by that motorcyclist my business would probably have gone bust. I needed the Mother’s Day income to make up for lean periods in the rest of the year. I’m convinced it was my mother’s voice that had made me lock the door, but it was two years since my mum had died so how was that possible?

Anne came to see me for a reading and I explained to her that the incident had happened so that she could learn that her mother is still taking care of her. She said she couldn’t believe that the voice was quite so clear, almost as though her mum was sitting in the passenger seat of the car. She told me that from now on she is always going to lock the car doors when she drives her takings to the bank.

Of course, not all bad things can be prevented. The reason that theft was prevented is because it wasn’t part of Anne’s life plan for her business to go bust. I still see her now and her business is ticking over—not making a fortune but bringing a lot of happiness to her and to all the people who receive her beautiful creations as gifts.

If you hear a loved one’s voice in your head, you may question whether it is real or just your imagination, and sometimes it can be hard to distinguish, but the key question to ask is whether you were thinking about that person, or something to do with them, at the time. If you weren’t, and the voice just came out of nowhere, it is likely to be a message from the spirit world.

Trekking in the Blue Mountains

We all have a time at which we are ordained to die, according to a blueprint that was set down before we came into this life. So, for example, one person might be ordained to die of cancer at the age of eighty-three while another might be supposed to go in a car accident at the age of twenty.

It’s a strange concept to get your head around that the time of your death is pre-ordained. All of us have lived many different lifetimes and with each one, we have to learn specific lessons in order for our souls to evolve. You will come back into a circumstance that enables you to learn the specific lesson you need to learn next, and your life will be as long as it needs to be for that purpose. Maybe you need to learn compassion for others, or not to place such a high value on material possessions, or how to express your creativity. There are all sorts of lessons to learn.

Guardian angels might intervene if you are straying away from your purpose, or having difficulty overcoming a problem that you need to overcome—or if your life is about to be cut short unexpectedly. Their warnings can help us to avoid dying early—if we only listen to them.

A man I knew received a warning while trekking in Australia’s Blue Mountains, just north of Sydney.

Two friends and I set off on a bush walk well armed with information from the tourist authority about the route we were taking and hazards to avoid on the way. There was even a little leaflet with pictures of dangerous creatures, such as snakes and spiders, we might encounter, but we were reassured by the advice that snakes will do their best to avoid contact with humans. If they hear footsteps approaching, they will slither off down a hole or into the nearest brush. For this reason, you are advised to make as much noise as you can when walking into an overgrown area.

The sandstone mountains have a blueish tinge when viewed from a distance and the walk we were on was quite spectacular. It was a clear, sunny day and we covered about twenty miles before we decided to stop and set up camp for the night in a flattish, sheltered area. We collected some firewood and built a fire then balanced a pot of water on top to make tea. We had brought bread and cheese, cold meat and fruit, but as the light began to fade, the air grew cooler and I was glad of the fire.

We sat drinking our tea, eating our food and chatting about our day. I was about to stand up to walk off behind a tree and relieve myself when I heard my dad’s voice in my head, clear as a bell, saying, ‘Be still!’

I froze, shocked to hear him, because my father had died of cancer the previous year. We’d been very close and, in fact, he’d been the one who introduced me to the joys of trekking in the bush.

At that moment my eye was caught by a slight movement in the grass just inches from my outstretched leg. A brown snake was slithering towards me, so well camouflaged by the dry vegetation that I hadn’t noticed it till that moment. It was too late to jump up and run away because it was within striking distance.

My heart was pounding as I tried to remember the pictures in that tourist leaflet. Was a plain brown snake poisonous? I could feel beads of sweat springing out on my face. My friends were facing in the opposite direction, watching the sunset on the hills and oblivious to my situation. I didn’t dare shout to them, didn’t dare breathe, as the snake lifted its head and started to slither over my bare leg. I suppose it thought it was a log.

My father’s words—‘Be still!’—echoed in my head and I felt amazingly calm, feeling the cool roughness of the snake’s skin against my own.